All precious pictures. I was spawned fully grown ten years ago, and thus have no pictures... Or perhaps my lack of a scanner is evident. When my wife gets home, I'll get access to the photobucket album of the kids, and I'll drive you all mad with them, ok?

Grandma was classy though. I know this sounds sexist, but she never lost that "1940's" classic woman-ness. She was from West Virginia, raised on a self-subsiding farm. She raised her younger siblings when her mother died from cancer. All she had ever known was hard work. The woman was truly a force unto herself. She utterly dominated my family until her death and was the glue that held together her four sons when my Grandpa' dumped them and left. Yet she never lost the smallest touch of her femininity or any of the joy of living.

She had nothing. Nothing at all. And wanted nothing except strong family relationships. In Sunday church she would sit next to me and hold my hand and would scratch the back of my neck. When my mother died in '86 she moved in and took care of us for four years. She was an amazing cook and never failed to "forget" all the horrible things I said in anger (struggling to deal with my mother's death). Nothing but kisses, love and the patience of Job.

Until her dying breath she wore pants from the 1970's that she mended when they ripped. She wasted nothing, despite the fact that her four sons were of MORE than enough means to give her whatever she wanted. She refused to use a dishwasher and never missed a day of church until she was admitted, finally, at age 82 to the hospital with cancer of the ovaries. Presented with the option of a full hysterectomy she said calmly, "I've had all my parts until now, I'll keep them until I die. I'm 82. I've lived a happy life, I'm ready when God is."